How is Ritalin pronounced?
I keep wondering if the name was derived from the fictional substance Ryetalyn from a Star Trek episode (Requiem for Methuselah), which they pronounced Rie-TAL-in. Or visa-versa?
ETA: Speaking of jacking up drug prices, my HMO is jacking my QVAR co-pay through the roof starting next month, effectively rendering it not covered. I’ll be paying full market price now. Part D Medicare Drug Coverage, my ass.
RITT-(uh)-linn. It is not pronounced like Ryetalyn.
Some say something closer to riddle-in, while others add the “L” to the other syllable, hence RITT-linn.
You gave Oreos to your dogs? Oreos can kill them. Not to mention your diet isnt healthy. Obviously drugs are warping your reality. Change doctors.
drumming my fingertips One Oreo spread among three dogs won’t kill them, you silly boy. 
To be clear, I don’t chronicle every event in this thread and people are notoriously unreliable when reporting what we ate. Not as bad as dogs, though. Ask one and it will swear up and down that it has never eaten in its life and is starving to death as you speak.
After I posted that post I got bored and had some chicken breast and a couple smallish tomatoes. But you are right in that, while I know perfectly well what a proper diet is, I don’t always follow one.
And I prefer my reality warped, thank you very much. 
And my insurance may force me to change doctors. 
I hope my next one is another attractive female so I am slightly motivated to please/listen to her.
Chocolate is poisonous to dogs. Not a good idea to feed it to them.
Yeah, but one Oreo isn’t likely to cause problems.
And this site which seems to say Oreos are bad for dogs for the same reasons they are bad for people (nothing to do with chocolate).
To keep them safe I ate the poisonous filling myself.
It’s been a week, so what do we know?
– I am better organized. A good thing this time of year and with financial problems like mine.
– I feel smarter. I think I sound smarter, especially online. I’m almost confident enough to answer a job ad that basically described what I used to do, for even more pay than I used to get. It felt funny to see an ad and realize that I’m not sure anybody else has that precise background. Not sure I can handle it, though; my brain has been through a lot in the past five years. Of course, it’s probably in Florida, a state I don’t like. I’ll have to rent until the state is washed away.
– There is less of a physical feeling that my brain is twisting inside my skull when I’m trying to follow something. I’m reading a math book for a popular audience and I am following it much better than before.
– I am less sleepy–DUH! I have to schedule my sleep instead of getting tired and following Nature.
– I am much more talkative–another DUH!
– I never had much appetite, mostly because I unthinkingly grazed all day. Now I need to be reminded to eat, and eat properly, because when I was drinking I became malnourished. Not un-nourished, but lack of vitamins and calcium and some of the health problems. Taking advantage of the “diet pill” side effect, but watching it.
The past few days I had no appetite at all, so I didn’t eat. I’ve fasted before, but it caught up with me on Christmas. Frightful chills, unable to think straight, could hardly walk, and standing up was a five minute process. It got so bad I had to ask my daughter to drive me home from a party.
I laid down and promptly fell asleep. This was at about 5PM. At 6:30PM I woke up, fully convinced it was 6:30AM. Did you know that all of Boxing Day it was so overcast as to be almost like night? No, it wasn’t here, either, but I thought it was. I grew suspicious, but couldn’t find my phone, which has the good graces to tell me what day it is, so I went back to bed. When Sunday finally dawned I found my phone and learned it was Saturday.
I told my wife that the last time I felt that exact way I was at my doctor for a different reason and he threw me into the hospital because I was “near death.”
“Doctors exaggerate.”
“I know, and it might’ve been the DTs that time, but it would’ve been nice if someone had checked to see if I was still alive.”
Note to self: Schedule meals and stick to the schedule. And drink plenty of water. And be more careful with Ritalin; it can lie to you.
When I first started taking adderall, there were some…quirks. Food just didn’t seem like a priority. I mean, yeah, eventually I would eat, but it was fairly light and nonthreatening fare. I had to learn how to eat sensibly again.
Years ago I took Tenuate to help me lose weight. I lost so much interest in food I called it “Pretend-You-Ate.”
Fruit and vegetables taste good. Bland stuff. I lived on fruit cups, green jello, and English muffins in the hospital. I like breakfast cereal with milk, so I’ll have some for lunch. Coffee is appealing, Italian food is not.
I skipped my doses yesterday because I didn’t feel a need for speed, and took a half dose this morning to ease back into it. I’m not sure the positive, written on the label, effects of this are worth the others that I really like because, deep down, I’m a small-d doper. OTOH, one doctor told me that he loved asthmatics because it’s the life or death nature of the condition that causes us to be aware of the effects of every medicine we take.
It’s over a month; time for an update.
I was telling a former supervisor about my little experiment (Wife hates how open I am about my quirks. Or anything else. But this is a person I have been friends with for years) and the guy across the aisle (a newer friend, but one I can trust and whose assessments I respect) volunteered that it’s “like night and day.” I’m more friendly, personable, and effective at my job. So personable that I swear I’ll end up engaged to one of these ladies before I end the call. :eek:
I’m posting less because I now have a social life. I’ve been driving my daughter to trivia night at a sports bar and I’ve begun hanging around for the game. There goes goofing off Tuesday nights. The team consists of her, my oldest, my oldest’s roommate and friend, both of whom I’ve known half their lives, and other random friends. They say they needed an older person for some of the questions, anyway.
At a party for the roommate’s new puppy last night I had to explain to her father why an old atheist like me is a member in good standing at a church as well as Parish Librarian. He considers me a sell-out for the atheist cause because he’s a rigidly grumpy old man who is no good at trivia, while this other guy got the concept fine. I used my “I’m inconsistent as hell” excuse to no avail.
As for the library, about twelve years ago I stumbled into the job because I couldn’t bear watching Old Mr Anderson, a stroke-out, lugging books between the library and this book rack in the narthex. I was serious about it for a couple years, less serious for a few more, then I pretty much fell away.
I’ve been driving my daughter to choir practice and services and, when it was warmer, hanging out in the parking lot, searching for a decent wi-fi signal. The weather drove me indoors, which I had been avoiding because it required me to be around people. With my new energy I looked at the library and realized I was probably still the librarian because nobody else had done anything with it. I wrote a message for the bulletin requesting newer contributions and ideas, and set to work on The Cull.
Checked out since 1985, donated by someone who is still alive, or of some value as a research tool? It can probably stay since I probably shouldn’t strip the shelves completely. Last checked out before 1985? I look deeper. Theologically suspect (generally meaning Baptist of some sort (“I’m guessing from his donations that your ex wasn’t a Lutheran.” “Nope, graduated from Moody.”), written by Billy Graham, uses quotes from the KJV, or determined by the publishing house, but sometimes meaning “just too fucking Catholic”), falling apart, printed before I was born in 1954, or a book fixed in time (usually the '70s, but some Norman Vincent Peale–who the fuck remembers Norman Vincent Peale?) earns it a place in the discard pile. Nothing so far has been simply pitched, like the creationist kids book I found during an earlier, less thorough cull; I have a problem with dinosaurs in the Garden of Eden.
However, I am not optimistic about what will come in. Too often people see a church library as a place they can ditch crap from Grandma’s attic, like they’ll go to Hell because they recycled it instead. Then there’s all that glurge out there. A lady asked if it would be okay if she donated the Christian novels her husband goes through like popcorn. Pushing down the vomit I said that, when I started, Pastor Carole had two rules: No Baptists and no fiction, and I would have to look at them before starting a fiction section. But Carole’s been gone for years (has a Methodist parish, oddly enough) and if it drives traffic I suppose I can put aside my aesthetic and theological standards.
The Cull has yielded about 40% trash, which buys a lot of shelf space for the new stuff, including DVDs and stuff aimed at a younger audience, especially tweens and teens. There are VHS tapes that will probably need to go, though with a few that will be painful.
So, the upshot is that the Ritalin seems to be doing some good. Doc assumed that I would cut down on my coffee intake. “Why?” I asked, as that was the most insane assumption I can imagine.
“So you don’t get too jittery.”
I did not go into depth about how I am a natural speed freak and LIKE the jitters and being more than a bit wired. Instead, I answered with a non-committal, “I understand decaf tastes better these days.” This is how you get refills for your controlled substances.
If anyone is thinking about becoming a pilot, stay away from Ritalin. It is on the FAA list of banned drugs and even if you have been off of it for a long time, it will kill any chances of getting an FAA medical certificate. My nephew was on it for a few months and wanted to fly but that is no longer an option.
I’m glad to hear that the medicine is making such a positive difference for you! I also think that this sounds like a church library I’d like to see some time.
I remember getting some prescription speeder’s, they were heart shaped and jeebus they made ya zing. I was a roofer then and could carry up loads of shingles all day long without every feeling tired.
Dropzone inspired in part by your story, and by my daughter’s recent experience with her diagnosis and treatment for ADD, I went and talked to my psychiatrist. My daughter and I are so much alike, after she was diagnosed with ADD, I wondered if the same applied to me. (She’s gone from Fs to As at school.)
The psychiatrist diagnosed me as ADHD (I get the hyper “bonus” apparently). I’ve been on Ritalin for about 3 weeks. It has been very interesting. I don’t feel wired or jittery. I’m just able to focus and organize. Big difference at work and at home. We’ll see how it goes, but so far I’m amazed by the difference it seems to make.
Um, not yet. The challenge is to keep my interest. I have a few months until choir ends, which will end my forced time there until Fall. I really want to update it because we are trying to expand our appeal for young people and families, and it is something I have control over. With no budget, it also challenges my scrounging skills. Fixing the choir I can’t do, though the director is decidedly unhip with Lutheran choir major sensibilities, operatic voice, and an insistence that everybody sing Every. Last. Verse. It wouldn’t be so bad if the songs were better, but we’re Lutherans and they are the most singsong, drab things imaginable.
Our pastor is retiring and I even volunteered, too late, for the search committee! I want another hippie. At the church meeting where it was announced I was sitting next to him and, as the speaker extolled his virtues and accomplishments I noticed that his social activism was overlooked. I leaned over and asked how many times he was arrested last year. He thought for a moment and said it was only twice. He calls his lawyer the night before a demonstration so the guy is ready with bail money. I like that in a pastor.
ddsun, I’m glad I could be of help. 
When I was a teenager (in the 60s) I tried speed and I hated it. Oh sure, it made me feel good and I could see the attraction. But it was completely debilitating. I couldn’t do anything productive when I took it and then there were the other people I saw who loved speed.
Seeing other people I knew who loved speed and became (in the parlance of the times) “Speed Freaks”, was just terrifying to me. Their hair fell out. Their teeth fell out. They couldn’t do anything else with their lives except score some speed.
I tried it a few times and then stopped and never tried it again.
But in the late 70s, I was working for a company whose employees went out on strike and the company provided access to doctors who would prescribe Ritalin so we could work 18 hour days and cover for the striking employees.
The effects of Ritalin were exactly the same as the effects of Speed.
But the puzzling thing is that it always seemed to me that Ritalin produced a very diff effect in kids than it did in adults. It seemed to help kids with ADHD (or is it AHDH?) concentrate and it seems to universally be considered a good thing. But for adults, it seems to be the same as Speed.
I don’t understand that.
It seems to work differently for people who are ADD, young and old, than it does with Normals. I do not know the mechanism.